Help Needed in Choosing NAS System!

[Baasha]

I have decided to get a dedicated NAS system for my rig. I already have a "network" drive (one external HDD) for backups and that serves its purpose quite well.

However, what I am looking for is as follows. I want to get an external RAID enclosure (RAID-0 or RAID-10) mainly for video editing.

I need this "server" to be able to store large video files, pre-render and post-render, and also capture video from games (using FRAPS etc.) fast enough for there not be any stutter and/or lag. I also want the drives to be fast enough to be used as scratch disks for Photoshop, Premier Pro, and After Effects (CS5).

I also do a bit of Cinema 4D so I would really like to have a dedicated NAS system to be able to store, playback, and capture media content with ease.

Which NAS systems do you guys recommend?

I am looking at sub-$1k systems so no SAS racks etc. I may consider exceptional systems that are a touch over $1k (~$1100 - 1200).

Ideally, I want a minimum of 4 drives (4-drive bay) with 1TB HDDs (7200 with a minimum of 32MB cache). Although, I've heard the WD Caviar Blacks have a 64MB cache! If I go to higher number of drives, say 8, is that too much overkill? I don't see myself needing much more 5TB for a while so I'm not looking for 10TB+. I wouldn't mind getting a 8-drive bay system though and perhaps expand later by adding more HDDs.

The other thing I need to mention is that I am going to be connecting this NAS system via eSATA (on my motherboard; the ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer). Since my motherboard is not USB 3.0 compatible, I figured eSATA is the next best bet. Firstly, if I connect a 4 or 5 drive NAS system to a single eSATA connection, will the internal RAID sysytem of the NAS device work properly? I read somewhere about eSATA port multipliers or something and I'm not sure what that is or whether I'd need that for my system to work optimally.

I would most likely be going with 4TB RAID-0 to get the maximum read/write speeds. This NAS system will be used for video editing stuff about 90% of the time. The rest will be for backups of important files for redundancy. I already have another external HDD for backups but the space on that drive is shrinking by the day.

Some of the NAS systems I've looked at so far are below. Any suggestions regarding these are welcome. I am looking for the best performance; aesthetics of the NAS system is a distant second priority.

1. LaCie 5big Network 2 (5TB) - http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10485 - $899
2. LaCie 2big Quadra (4TB) - http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10310 - $499
3. LaCie 4big Quadra (4TB) - http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10313 - $799
4. LaCie 2big Network 2 (4TB) - http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10477 - $449
5. Synology DS-1511+ - http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS1511+/index.php - $924.99 (DISKLESS) actual cost will be well over $1000 with 5 1TB Caviar Blacks!

These are the five I've looked at so far. I really love LaCie's design but I'm not sure how their NAS devices perform. Any suggestions? Synology seems to be quite a bit more expensive; a 5 bay system with NO HDDs for almost $1k! Anyway, if there are other brands that are better than either of these two, then I'm all ears!


Thanks in advance.

 

[taltamir]

However, what I am looking for is as follows. I want to get an external RAID enclosure (RAID-0 or RAID-10) mainly for video editing.

Did you mean maybe RAID1 / RAID10?
Because RAID0 is risky. And is meant for absolute performance. Which is not exactly needed for videos.

Ideally, I want a minimum of 4 drives (4-drive bay) with 1TB HDDs (7200 with a minimum of 32MB cache). Although, I've heard the WD Caviar Blacks have a 64MB cache! If I go to higher number of drives, say 8, is that too much overkill? I don't see myself needing much more 5TB for a while so I'm not looking for 10TB+. I wouldn't mind getting a 8-drive bay system though and perhaps expand later by adding more HDDs.

How did you come up with those figures?
Why not 2x2TB drives instead?

As far as FRAPS capture, I have no idea what its speed requirement for 0 dropped frames is but you could always capture to a local drive, even an SSD if needed, and then move it to the server.

 

[Baasha]

Well, I wanted to go with RAID-0 for the speed. With platter drives, the RAID-0 config for 4 drives (4TB) should give me a decent read/write rate. I just want to make sure that the fault tolerance is not in the shitter.

Regarding the actual NAS devices, can you comment on the ones I posted? Or are there others that you think are better?

 

[taltamir]

I just want to make sure that the fault tolerance is not in the shitter.

in that case use RAID10 rather then 0.
Since your plan was 4x1 TB RAID0, I take it you need 4TB of usable space?
If so then you can get 4TB of usable space using 4x2TB RAID10.
Seriously read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels
RAID5/6 is very slow
RAID0 is very unsafe

I am not terribly familiar with any of those but I would personally use a self built FreeNAS or Solaris box so I can get ZFS and also because its a fraction of the price.
That being said, you wanted to connect it via eSATA and that I don't know how you would go about setting up (it is possible) so maybe a prebuilt is better for you.

For 4GB of available space with RAID10 you need the LaCie 4bit 8TB for $1,199.00.

And that is just expensive.

 

[Baasha]

in that case use RAID10 rather then 0.
Since your plan was 4x1 TB RAID0, I take it you need 4TB of usable space?
If so then you can get 4TB of usable space using 4x2TB RAID10.
Seriously read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels
RAID5/6 is very slow
RAID0 is very unsafe

I am not terribly familiar with any of those but I would personally use a self built FreeNAS or Solaris box so I can get ZFS and also because its a fraction of the price.
That being said, you wanted to connect it via eSATA and that I don't know how you would go about setting up (it is possible) so maybe a prebuilt is better for you.

For 4GB of available space with RAID10 you need the LaCie 4bit 8TB for $1,199.00.

And that is just expensive.

Okay I understand the difference in RAID modes. I still want to go with RAID-0 for the speed. The thing I don't get is, if I connect a DAS/NAS box to my motherboard (not the network per se) via eSATA, will it be able to recognize it as "one" drive? What I mean is the NAS device should have an inbuilt RAID controller correct? This way, if I run 4 1TB drives in RAID-0, I should be able to see a single HDD that is ~4TB in "My Computer"? Through an eSATA connection, will the read/writes be fast enough where I can record HD videos and play them back without any stutter or lag?

I guess what I need is an external RAID enclosure that will enable me to use it for recording games and playing HD movies/videos back at a fast rate. My current external HDD connected via USB 2.0 (LaCie Minimus 2TB) stutters like hell if I try to play any HD videos from it.

So I suppose I would need a DAS device more than a NAS. Which DAS RAID enclosure can you recommend? I am quite set on RAID-0 and at least 4 drives. I might go with a 5-drive bay device with 5 600GB Raptors in RAID-0 which should be quite fast right?

 

[moriz]

mediasonic makes a lot of 4-bay enclosures that can do RAID. good ones usually sit in the $240+ range though. the newest ones use USB3.

as for recording games (i'm assuming with Fraps), i found that it is necessary to have a RAM buffer in place as well, since HDD performance is not consistent, doubly so in RAID0. in fact with sufficient RAM, you can get away with only a two drive RAID0. you'll need to dedicate quite a bit of RAM for that though, 4GB+ generally.

all that said, i'd recommend that you run the array inside your computer, since that still gives the best/most consistent performance.

 

[taltamir]

Running a 4 drive RAID0 on an external array is a waste because a single eSATA port is just not fast enough.
If you are serious about 4 drive RAID0 then you should put it inside your computer, or use some more exotic communication method then eSATA.

 

[moriz]

Running a 4 drive RAID0 on an external array is a waste because a single eSATA port is just not fast enough.
If you are serious about 4 drive RAID0 then you should put it inside your computer, or use some more exotic communication method then eSATA.

That depends on the implementation. Most esata ports these days are sata 6Gbps, which should be enough for a 4 drive raid 0.

But yeah, run the raid internally is definitely the best option.

 

[Baasha]

mediasonic makes a lot of 4-bay enclosures that can do RAID. good ones usually sit in the $240+ range though. the newest ones use USB3.

as for recording games (i'm assuming with Fraps), i found that it is necessary to have a RAM buffer in place as well, since HDD performance is not consistent, doubly so in RAID0. in fact with sufficient RAM, you can get away with only a two drive RAID0. you'll need to dedicate quite a bit of RAM for that though, 4GB+ generally.

all that said, i'd recommend that you run the array inside your computer, since that still gives the best/most consistent performance.

I can't run any more HDDs in my computer since all the SATA/SAS ports are taken (ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer). That is the reason I was looking for an external enclosure that is dedicated to video/photo/games recording, playback, and storage.

Is there an external enclosure that has a SAS controller built in? I don't have any free PCI-E slots left either since I'm running 4-Way SLI. I already have 2 SAS drives (15k RPM) in RAID-0 on the 2 SAS ports on the mobo but that's used for my 'old' games. My OS 'drive' is 2 Corsair Force GTs in RAID-0 and my programs are on 2 SLC SSDs in RAID-0. I have one optical drive and one Samsung F3 1TB for general storage and that is the drive I am currently using to record games using FRAPS and it's filling up fast.

I have the external HDD for backups and other media but I want a dedicated 'box' to record games and playback HD movies. So a 4 drive SAS enclosure with RAID-0 would be incredible because I can put 4 15k RPM drives which will give me tremendous speeds.

Regarding the eSATA connection, I have 2 free ones in the I/O panel on the back of my mobo. But if I were to use a RAID enclosure, I can use only one cable right? Somebody mentioned (on another forum) something called iSCSI and LACP. I don't know what that is or how that pertains to what I want.

I really like the Synology DS1512+ which can have 5 drives so I was thinking I could use a 4-drive 600GB Raptor RAID-0 array and the other drive can be a 2TB Caviar Black for storing completed renders/movies.

The problem is, I heard that the eSATA port on that (those) devices are for connecting HDDs and not to the back of the computer!??

So given the new info (no space inside the PC etc.), what do you recommend?

 

[moriz]

first thing first: what resolution and frame rate are you recording in? if you are not doing >1080p at >60 FPS, you don't need RAID.

second, NAS devices won't work for you, since they operate over gigabit ethernet and will limit you to less than 100 MB/s. that will hold true no matter how many drives you put in RAID0. hence why most NAS devices run RAID1/5/6/10 for data redundancy, since performance won't be there anyway.

thirdly, encoding and playing back video are not particularly drive intensive. they are actually CPU bound most of the time. having a 4-drive RAID0 here won't help you much. SSDs make better scratch disks, and will end up being the cheaper and more powerful solution for photoshop.

and yes, the eSATA port on the synology is for connecting drives to it, not to connect it to a computer. a NAS's default connectivity is gigabit ethernet, which as i'd mentioned already, will do you no good.

your best choice would be a mediasonic 4-bay RAID enclosure with USB3. i'm pretty sure the eSATA versions work too, as long as the drives are already in RAID when you connect it. in that case, the enclosure reports a single massive drive, instead of four separate ones. i might be wrong on that part though, so do your research before purchase.

 

[Baasha]

first thing first: what resolution and frame rate are you recording in? if you are not doing >1080p at >60 FPS, you don't need RAID.

second, NAS devices won't work for you, since they operate over gigabit ethernet and will limit you to less than 100 MB/s. that will hold true no matter how many drives you put in RAID0. hence why most NAS devices run RAID1/5/6/10 for data redundancy, since performance won't be there anyway.

thirdly, encoding and playing back video are not particularly drive intensive. they are actually CPU bound most of the time. having a 4-drive RAID0 here won't help you much. SSDs make better scratch disks, and will end up being the cheaper and more powerful solution for photoshop.

and yes, the eSATA port on the synology is for connecting drives to it, not to connect it to a computer. a NAS's default connectivity is gigabit ethernet, which as i'd mentioned already, will do you no good.

your best choice would be a mediasonic 4-bay RAID enclosure with USB3. i'm pretty sure the eSATA versions work too, as long as the drives are already in RAID when you connect it. in that case, the enclosure reports a single massive drive, instead of four separate ones. i might be wrong on that part though, so do your research before purchase.

Thanks for the response.

I am recording at a minimum of 1600P (2560x1600) and sometimes, I record (half-quality since I run out of VRAM) at 7680x1600 (Battlefield 3 for instance). However, more than 95% of my recording is at 2560x1600.

I don't have USB 3.0 on my motherboard so that option won't work.

Scratch Disks - that's the word I was looking for. So for a really great scratch disk, you recommend SSDs? The only issue I have with those is they are quite expensive per GB so if I were to get 4 240GB, that's still under 1TB and would fill up really quickly.

I think the best bet is for 4 or 5 600GB Raptors to be the scratch disks. I just need to find a proper enclosure that will connect to my computer with the fastest method possible.

 

[moriz]

1600p at 60fps? oh man... at those settings, a Fraps recording requires a drive capable of a whooping 356.05 MB/s sustained write. for something like that, you'll at least need a 4xRAID0 with a generous sized (think 8GB) RAM buffer.

for drives, i'd recommend getting 7200 RPM drives that feature single 1TB platters. those drives typically have the best sequential performance. velocirapters will work too, but really won't offer you much, since their sequential performance aren't exactly top notch. this drive:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16822145533

can apparently reach 180MB/s sequential. don't know about its reliability though.

for your other questions, you don't really need something like this for photoshop, after effects, and video encoding. those tasks tend to be more CPU bound, and a single SSD works well enough as your scratch disk. the massive 4xRAID0 is only necessary for Fraps, which is entirely drive dependent on any modern system.

tbh, the most cost effective solution for you would be to tick the "half-size" option in Fraps for all your recordings. do you really need your recordings to be in 1600p? that seems a little excessive.

 

[taltamir]

moriz raises excellent points in his two posts.
What do you call a RAID box that connects directly to a computer using a high speed connection rather then network sharing?

1600p at 60fps? oh man... at those settings, a Fraps recording requires a drive capable of a whooping 356.05 MB/s sustained write. for something like that, you'll at least need a 4xRAID0 with a generous sized (think 8GB) RAM buffer.

At such an obscene speed, while USB3 should suffice (its half the theoretical speed), actual controllers often and typically cut corners and can deliver much below theoretical speed... especially when they think people will not notice because of a lack of devices capable of providing/handling data that fast.

So you would have to research the individual controllers on the external device (which I seriously doubt handles the full USB3 speed) or get an exotic connection used in enterprise (that will get the full speed) or use something like:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816215322

OP: What is your budget and do you actually NEED it to be 1600P60? I mean, what do you even do with those videos?

 

[moriz]

What do you call a RAID box that connects directly to a computer using a high speed connection rather then network sharing?

i think they are just called RAID enclosures. tbh, i'm pretty sure they are mostly designed for data storage and data redundancy in mind; RAID0 is implemented practically as an afterthought on those devices.

OP: What is your budget and do you actually NEED it to be 1600P60? I mean, what do you even do with those videos?

i once accidentally recorded a game at 2560x1440 60fps. my configuration, which is 3xRAID0 1TB seagate barracuda 7200.12 and a 2GB ram buffer, was able to sustain the recording. however, my system (2600K 4.5GHz, 16GB ram, HD 7970 at the time) could not play any of the files back without stuttering. while doing my encoding, the first pass only managed to proceed at 8fps. normally, the first pass whips through at over 100fps. a 1600p Fraps recording is basically unusable. there's nothing out there that can reasonably play it. not to mention, you'll need a full blown data server to store them. at 1440p60, 30 seconds of footage weighed in at 4GB. or in other words, 30 minutes of footage require 240GB. have fun storing that.

 

[murphyc]

If these data rate requirements are for real, just call small-tree.com and be done with it. Defer to them 100%. It's not worth building this sort of storage on your own.

And for sure 1GigE NAS is not going to cut it, you're way beyond that with the numbers being thrown around. A single green hard drive will saturate 1GigE. So aggregation and redundancy of disks in a NAS is what you'd be after, striping won't get you anywhere.

You sound like you're in 10GigE territory, and a LOT of storage. If you were to require multiple workstations accessing this storage, you'd need to look at InfiniBand with the numbers you've posted.

 

[beginner99]

For what you need you probably need to raid0 ssds...forget about a NAS. NAS is for slow bulk storage. NAS = network attached storage. Unless you got a 10gbit/sec network, forget it.

Only raid enclosure that could work are these new Thunderbold ones:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4489/promise-pegasus-r6-mac-thunderbolt-review/6


And you are right raid0 is the way to go for video editing. You don't need reliability there just speed. Best would again be an ssd...

 

[taltamir]

i once accidentally recorded a game at 2560x1440 60fps. my configuration, which is 3xRAID0 1TB seagate barracuda 7200.12 and a 2GB ram buffer, was able to sustain the recording.

Pretty hefty RAID0 array you have there.

however, my system (2600K 4.5GHz, 16GB ram, HD 7970 at the time) could not play any of the files back without stuttering. while doing my encoding, the first pass only managed to proceed at 8fps. normally, the first pass whips through at over 100fps. a 1600p Fraps recording is basically unusable. there's nothing out there that can reasonably play it.

Yes, currently there are no consumer electronics capable of properly playing back such a recording.

Only reason to record like that is when mastering a movie.
You downscale it for current release at 1080p and in 10 years re-release it at the full 1600p (by then we should have consumer hardware capable of playing it back)

The thing is, the OP is not filming or even rendering (which, he could keep the assets of to do a better remaster).
He is recording a video game off of FRAPS.

not to mention, you'll need a full blown data server to store them. at 1440p60, 30 seconds of footage weighed in at 4GB. or in other words, 30 minutes of footage require 240GB. have fun storing that.

His proposed 4x1TB RAID0 array should store 8 hours and 20 minutes of footage.

 

[moriz]

true, the 4TB array can store a lot of video, even at 1600p60. however, keep in mind that HDD performance degrades as they are filled up. not to mention, 8h20m of video isn't a whole lot.

 

[Baasha]

1600p at 60fps? oh man... at those settings, a Fraps recording requires a drive capable of a whooping 356.05 MB/s sustained write. for something like that, you'll at least need a 4xRAID0 with a generous sized (think 8GB) RAM buffer.

That's why I was referring to a 4-drive RAID0 array from the get go. However, as of now, I am recording game-play at 60FPS @ 1600P on the Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB and while my gameplay during recording dips to around 30-35 FPS, my playback is very smooth. The main issue I have is the storage space; a 39 second video is approximately 3GB.

What I'm looking for is a 'box' I can record the game play to without having to sacrifice FPS; meaning still be playing at ~60+ FPS while recording with FRAPS. The settings in FRAPS are "Full-Size" and "60FPS" so that's the best quality it gives. Video with MSI and/or Precision sucks so I stick to FRAPS.

So when you say 1TB 7200 drives should suffice, what do you think of the WD Caviar Black with 64MB cache? I can put 4 of those in RAID0 and that should be pretty good right? The question is, which enclosure (with built-in RAID controller) can I use? And what connection will it have to my computer which doesn't have USB 3.0?

What about this one: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/das/rm710c.asp ?

It has 5 bays but what connection to my PC will be fast enough to sustain good read/write speeds? Will the eSATA connection suffice?

 

[beginner99]

Just a short comment:

In my limited experience fraps will always have a negative impact on gaming experience regardless of what you use to store the output.

 

[murphyc]

I can put 4 of those in RAID0 and that should be pretty good right?

Per the specs, these drives are 138 MB/s sustained. You're at saturation of 3Gb/s SATA with 2 disks on one bus. You either need two independent buses, or you need a 6Gb/s SATA interface to the disks while also ensuring all disks are SATA 6Gb/s.

The chances of a 1 in 4 disk failure are significantly higher than you think, or you wouldn't even consider this for production storage - unless it doesn't bother you to lose every single bit of data on the entire array. Downtime, plus rebuild from backup, plus whatever was lost since the last backup. It doesn't make sense.

What about this one: http://www.pc-pitstop.com/das/rm710c.asp ?

It has 5 bays but what connection to my PC will be fast enough to sustain good read/write speeds? Will the eSATA connection suffice?

No because aside from the above issue, eSATA is widely implemented only as 3Gb/s. 6Gb/s is more rare, and the specs don't say what SATA revision its eSATA interface is using. It could even be 1.5Gb/s. Nothing less than 6Gb/s eSATA will do based on your requirement for greater than 300MB/s. Not only is it unknown what SATA revision their eSATA connect to your computer uses, but it's unclear what the internal SATA bus or busses are using to disk. It just says it supports 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s disks, which tells us nothing because any 6Gb/s disk will work on a 3Gb/s interface, at 3GB/s speed.

Based on your stated requirements, you're looking at enterprise level storage requirements. Not a consumer solution.

 

[taltamir]

That's why I was referring to a 4-drive RAID0 array from the get go. However, as of now, I am recording game-play at 60FPS @ 1600P on the Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB and while my gameplay during recording dips to around 30-35 FPS, my playback is very smooth. The main issue I have is the storage space; a 39 second video is approximately 3GB.

There is no reason for you to record it at full size though, in fact that is pretty damn silly.
It is also impossible for FRAPS to record a game without slowing down your FPS.

However
HDMI splitter ~20$: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...litter&x=0&y=0

DVD recorder under 100$ allows recording from HDMI input to DVD on the fly: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ecorder+player

Capture card allows a SECOND computer (don't use it on the same PC as the game or low performance) to capture the HDMI stream to a file:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...capture%20card

 

[moriz]

a second box for just recording is a good idea, but the hard part is finding a capture card capable of encoding a 1600p60 video stream. most of the ones available can only do 1080i, which is both the wrong size and aspect ratio. there's also the matter of HDMI 1.3b (most of them use that standard) not being able to handle 2560x1600 resolution.

the best option is still to tick the "half size" option. your videos will be recorded at 1280x800, a much saner resolution, and can be easily accomplished without spending ~$800 in dedicated equipment.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

bah, wrong post